A Lifestyle Covenant - Part 9

“For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no place would have been sought for a second. But he finds fault with them and says, ‘Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they did not stand by my covenant and I ignored them says the Lord. But this is the covenant I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws and I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach each one his fellow citizen and kinsman, saying, ‘Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from least to the greatest. For I will forgive their evil doing and remember their sins no more” Jer.31:33. (NABRE).

Beloved,

As we study this wonderful document, I pray that our eyes will be opened; so that we shall not be satisfied with superficial view of Him, but with open eyes we will see deeply into the mystery of His transactions in the eternal covenant, His engagements on your behalf as your eternal Surety and the fullness of His grace which shines in all His offices in Jesus name. Amen.

An eminent divine has said, and I concur absolutely to his view because of the mandate God gave me in teaching the covenant. God spoke to me and said, ‘the only way to stir a middle course and not fall to the ditch on the left and on the right, is to understand the covenant. It is by the covenant that you can strike a balance – or the golden mean or the aurea mediocritas.’

With the benefit of hindsight, I have come to realise also that the covenant furnishes us with the appropriate tool for the right interpretation and understanding of the Scripture – the Divine Will. Now here is what he says: ‘The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of the Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of law and of grace.’

In his own word, this is the reason why. ‘The human race in order of history, as far as this world is concerned, first stood in subjection to God under the covenant of works. Adam was the representative man. (See Rom.5:12-14 & 1Cor.15:45-49). A certain law was given to him. If he kept it, he and his posterity would be blessed as a result of obedience. (See Gen.2:16-17). If he broke it, he would incur the curse himself and entail it on all represented by him. That covenant our first father broke. He fell – he failed to fulfill his obligations – and in his fall, he involved us all, for we were all in his loins and he represented us before God. Our ruin then was complete before we were born. We were ruined then by him who stood as our first representative. To be saved by the works of the law is impossible, for under that covenant we are already lost. If saved at all, it must be all quite a different plan, not on the plan of doing and being rewarded for it, for that has been tried – and the representative man upon whom it was tried has failed for us all. We have all failed in his failure! It is hopeless, therefore, to expect to win divine favour by anything that we can do or merit divine blessing by way of reward!’

Friend, the good news is, as he continues; ‘But divine mercy has interposed and provided a plan of salvation from the fall. The plan is another covenant; a covenant made with Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who is fitly called by the apostle, “the second Adam,” because He stood again as the representative of man. Now the second covenant, as far as Christ was concerned, was a covenant of works quite as much as the other! It was on this wise: Christ shall come in to the world and perfectly obey the divine law. He shall also, inasmuch as the first Adam has broken the law, suffer the penalty of sin. If he shall do both of these, then all whom He represents shall be blessed in His blessedness and saved because of His merit. You see then, that, until our Lord came into this world, it was a covenant of works towards Him. He had certain works to perform, upon condition of which certain blessings would be given to us. Our Lord has kept that covenant! His part in it has been fulfilled to the last letter! There is no commandment which He has not honoured. There is no penalty of the broken law which He has not endured! He became a servant, and obedient, yes, obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He has thus done what the first Adam could not accomplish, and He has retrieved what the first Adam forfeited by His transgression. He has established the covenant, and now it ceases to be a covenant of works, for the works are all done! - Jesus did them, did them all, long, long ago.’

Friend, this why it is the ‘good tidings of great joy’. And so, he continues; ‘And now what remains of the covenant? God on His part has solemnly pledged Himself to give undeserved favour to as many as were represented in Christ Jesus. For as many as the Saviour died for, there is stored up a boundless mass of blessing which shall be given to them - not through their works, but as the sovereign gift of the grace of God, according to His covenant promise by which they shall be saved! Behold, my brothers and sisters, the hope of the sons of men! The hope of their being saved by works is a fallacious one for they cannot keep the law —they have already broken it! But there is a way of salvation opened on this wise— whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ—receives and partakes of the bliss which Christ has bought! All the blessings which belong to the covenant of grace through the work of Christ shall belong to every soul that believes in Jesus! Whoever works not, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, unto him shall the blessing of the new covenant of grace be undoubtedly given! See Rom.4:1-8. If Adam had kept the law, we would have been blessed by his keeping it. He broke it and we have been cursed through him. Now the Second Adam, Christ Jesus, has kept the law—we are, therefore, if believers, represented in Christ and blessed with the results of the obedience of Jesus Christ to His Father’s will. He said of old, “Lo, I come to do Your will, O God! Your law is My delight.” Heb.10:5-9 & Mat.5:17-18. He has done that will and the blessings of grace are now freely given to the sons of men!’

Friends, let us now enter upon a deliberation of this wonderful document which is the kernel in the nut, the meat in the dish, a royal viand, “a feast of fat things full of marrow and of wines on the lees well refined.” Through this wonderful document, we have been constituted inheritors of grace and glory and all that pertains to life and godliness have been given to us. Choicest and reserved blessings; kept for us in heaven, beyond the reach of Satan, change and corruption. See Eph.1:3, 1Tim.4:8 & 1Pet.1:3-4. By faith in these precious promises – an implicit trust in the One who gave these promises – grace (the power of God, the omnipotence of God at man’s disposal, 2Cor.12:9-10) is given to us through which we partake of the divine nature. Rom.4:16 & 2Pet.1:3-4.

Now, all these glorious blessings, without exception are made available to us through our glorious head, the Second Adam or rather the Last Adam. 2Cor.1:20. There was nothing done in the Fall of man that the Last Adam did not annul or undo. For where sin abound, grace has much more abounded. Grace cancels sin. Where death abounds, life has much more abounded so that life has superseded and cancelled death. In summary, what God did in and through the Last Adam far supersedes what the devil did in and through the first Adam! Jn10:10, 1Jn3:8 & Rom.5:17, 20-21.

Let us now focus upon our main text, it is indeed a new covenant because God has renewed His covenant with us, See Jer.31:31-34, so that all these blessings we shall have, not by providence only, but by promise, and thereby they shall be both sweetened and secured. This covenant actually refers to gospel times, the latter days that shall come; gospel grace as the apostle understands it, Heb.8:8-9, where this whole passage is quoted as a summary of the covenant of grace made with believers in Jesus Christ. Let us therefore observe the persons with whom this covenant is made, which is ‘with the house of Israel and Judah,’ that is, with the Gospel Church, the Israel of God on which peace shall be, Gal.6:16, with the spiritual seed of believing Abraham and praying Jacob. Judah and Israel had been two separate kingdoms, but were united after their return, in the joint favours God bestowed upon them so Jews and Gentiles were in the Gospel Church and covenant. In the second place we note also what the nature of this covenant is in general: it is a “new covenant and not according to the covenant made with them when they came out of Egypt.” Not also as that made with them at Mount Sinai - a covenant of nature and innocence, such as was made with Adam in the day he was created. Although it was, for substance, a covenant of grace, but it was a dark dispensation of that covenant in comparison with this in Gospel times. Sinners were saved by that covenant upon their repentance, and faith in a Messiah to come, whose blood, confirming that covenant, was typified by that of the legal sacrifices. Exo.24:7-8. Yet this may upon many accounts be called new, in comparison with the ordinances and promises that are more spiritual and heavenly, and the discoveries much clearer. That covenant God made with them when He “took them by the hand,” as they had been blind, or lame, or weak, “to lead them out of the land of Egypt, which covenant they broke.”

Furthermore, we observe that it was God that made this covenant, but it was the people that broke it, for our salvation is of God, but our sin and ruin are of ourselves. It was an aggravation of their breach of it that God “was a husband to them,” that he had espoused them to Himself it was a marriage-covenant that was between Him and them, which they broke by idolatry, that is, spiritual adultery. It is a great aggravation of our treacherous departures from God that He has been a husband to us, a loving, tender husband, faithful to us, and yet we prove false to Him.

Moreover, God’s plan is revealed in words in which the New Testament in Heb.8 takes as divinely inspired revelation of what the New Covenant is of which Christ is the Mediator. We are shown what He will do in us to make us ready and worthy to be the people for which He is the God of. Now, through the entire Old Covenant there was always one problem. Man’s heart was not right with God. Ps78 and verse 37 in particular mentioned this problem as the problem of the heart. See also Num.14:20-24 & Ps106. Therefore, in the New Covenant the evil is remedied. Its central promise is a heart delighting in God’s law and capable of knowing and holding fellowship with Him. To be continued.

Friend, let us work on this quality information, and get ourselves equipped for a better understanding of God’s covenant with us. Our meeting will hold early next year. We wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a glorious New Year in advance. We shall be duly informed of our next meeting.

God bless.

Yours in His service

Pastor David Adeyemi